Deepak Chopra-Ageless Body, Timeless Mind

Despite the usual critics and scepticism i think Deepak Chopra does and an amazing job at dispelling the myth that we are meant to grow ugly and sick as the years go by. All the pioneers of the past was ridiculed in their time and was simply the price they had to pay for their vision. Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra is no exception.

In this classic Chopra shows how our bodies are essentially energy that lives in a universe of energy. Our bodies are consistently exchanging information and energy with its environment and does not live as a 'stone statue' that is separate from its environment. Instead the body is like a river, it appears to be always the same but in truth it is constantly changing.

This comparison of the our physical bodies with a river is the one things that stands out for me in this book. Science has shown that 99% of the cells of our bodies is replaced within one year. This means we have a new physical body every year. Then why do we age? Aging is caused by our belief in it. The power of the mind is well documented and it only makes sense that when we see everyone around us grow old that we would grow old ourselves.

Moreover aging is a very personal experience, no two individuals age in the same way. This is because we all have unique experiences and genes. We all metabolize time differently. Einstein has proven with his theory of relativity that time is a relative phenomenon. When we are in love time is very different from when we are sitting on a hot stove. The one is timeless and the other feels like it will never pass.

It is up to us how we want to metabolize time. People who lives very stressful lives tend to age faster and become sick more often then those who lives stress free lives. This is because we experience time much more intensely when we feel stress. Try to think of a time when you were very happy. Did you think about time? Did you wish for the moment to pass? No, you were probably so immersed in the moment that time never even entered your mind.

This is timeless mind, and when it is experienced we inherit an ageless body. Time can only affect us when it is experienced, it is up to us to decide whether we want to be the stone statue that decays with time or the river that is always the same yet always new.